ISBN 978-1-84603-146-5
96 pages

Introduction; sidebars; photos; maps; organigrams; tables; OBs; Abbreviations and Glossary; Bibliography; Index

Bishop, Chris. Order of Battle: German Panzers in World War II. St Paul, MN: Zenith, 2007

ISBN 0-7603-3116-2
192 pages

Photos; maps; organigrams; sidebars; tables; Tactical Insignia; Index

   While not identical twins, these two recent publications are similar enough in content, style, and intent that it makes sense to compare and contrast them. Both ostensibly focus on organization and employment of panzer units, although Battistelli limits himself to the years 1939-1940 while Bishop encompasses the entire duration of the war. Both feature numerous organigrams, tank silhouettes, and maps. Although Bishop's book contains substantially more pages, both volumes end up with roughly the same amount of text. Beyond those similarities, however, plenty of differences emerge.
   To begin with, here are the opening paragraphs from each book.
   Battistelli writes:

   As the sun was setting in the late evening of 20 May 1940, the vanguards of 2. Panzer Division entered the city of Abbeville in France. Later that same night, they reached the town of Noyelles and their objective: the Somme river estuary. It was the culmination of a ten-day battle during which the division, along with the other two parts of Guderian's XIX. Armee Korps, had crossed the Meuse, broken through the French defensive lines at Sedan, and penetrated deep behind the enemy lines, covering more than 300km from the German border to the Atlantic shores. At the conclusion of this ten-day drive, the remnants of two French armies plus the British and Belgian ones, which formed the core of the Allied forces, were trapped with their backs to the sea. The inconceivable had become reality; Germany had won a stunning victory, her enemies were in shambles. A little more than a month later France capitulated, and the entire world marvelled at the German blitzkrieg.
   Even though many, on that day in May, were surprised by what had happened, some were not. Interestingly the following day, in peaceful Switzerland, an unknown commentator on Radio Beromunster, talking about the German offensive in the West, observed: 'the rapid German success is owed to a method of warfare that had not been used before the Polish campaign of last September. This method of warfare is completely mechanized. Technology has taken possession of war. The offensive did not take place along a continuous front, but rather it took the shape of numerous thrusts by the Panzer Divisions.'' Actually this was something of a look into the future; war was still far from becoming 'totally mechanized', even if it had taken a significant step forward.
   Nevertheless, the May 1940 campaign looked like a revolution. At first sight, the time of infantry marching into battle and of static trench warfare had disappeared forever; now the tank ruled the battlefield, and it did it in a manner not even its most devoted advocates might have been able to predict. As such, 20 May was not only the culmination of one of the most stunning military campaigns of the 20th century, but it was also a historic landmark in warfare. Yet, it was only the beginning of a military revolution, one in which the Panzer Division provided the leading characters, and one that would go on to shape warfare for many years to come.

   And this is how Bishop opens his book:

   Blitzkrieg enabled the Wehrmacht to overcome the bloody attrition strategies of Word War I, and to humble enemy after enemy at minimum cost to the German nation.
   The roots of Blitzkrieg lay in the German infiltration tactics of 1918. Special assault divisions with heavily armed 'Storm Troopers' broke through weak points in the Allied lines. The troops carried heavy loads of grenades, machine-guns and trench mortars, giving them superior firepower at the point of contact. They were supported by precision artillery fire and ground attack aircraft. Isolated pockets of defenders were dealt with by follow-up units: the Storm Troopers raged on through the Allied rear areas.
   Between the wars, British theories regarding a balanced armoured force were examined in great detail by the Truppenamt, the clandestine General Staff of the Reichswehr. One of the most important of the officers involved was Colonel Heinz Guderian. Guderian proposed that any future armoured force had to be a balance of all arms, with the main striking force being provided by a mobile spearhead of tanks, mechanized infantry and artillery.
   Guderian had some opposition within the German Army, but much of the General Staff looked on his ideas with favour. When the Nazis came to power, he found an even greater supporter in Hitler, who encouraged the efforts of the panzer troops at every stage.

   Battistelli expends about ten pages discussing Combat Mission, The Genesis of the Panzer Divisions, and Doctrine and Training. Then he turns to Unit Organization, the heart of the book, covering roughly 35 pages. These pages are accompanied by many tables and organigrams displaying unit TOEs down to battalion, company, and platoon level. This information covers each individual panzer division and includes material about evolving unit organization. Thus, it's easy to determine at a glance how the 1st Panzer Division included, among other subordinate units, the 37th Panzer Abwehr Abteilung which on 16 March 1940 gave way to the 37th Panzerjaeger Abteilung. After reviewing the overall composition and outline history of each division, the author looks at some of the specific arms of the division, including reconnaissance units, divisional artillery, anti-tank units, engineer units, etc, all with assorted organigrams and vehicle silhouettes.
   Here is Battistelli's text for recon units:

   The 'eyes' of the Panzer Division were provided by the Aufklarungs Abteilung, or reconnaissance unit. Its organization remained unchanged between 1939 and 1940 and every division had one - including 9. Panzer Division, which in May 1940 still had its Aufklarungs Abteilung 9 merged with Kradschutzen Bataillon 59 forming the Aufklarungs Regiment 9. Each Aufklarungs Abteilung was made up of two Panzer Spah (armoured car) Kompanien, one Kradschutzen and a schwere Waffen Kompanie (the term Kompanie was only introduced on 11 March 1940; before, the cavalry term Schwadron was used instead). In 1939 Aufklarungs Abteilungen 3, 4 and 7 also had a Brucken Kolonne D, which was not retained in 1940. The Aufklarungs Abteilung's overall strength lay at 753 (26 officers, 4 Beamte, 116 NCOs and 607 other ranks) and its weapons inventory comprised 427 rifles, 16 light and 2 heavy MGs, 3 light mortars, three 37mm AT guns and two light Infanterie Geschutz. Each Panzer Spah Kompanie also had six mixed radio and staff armoured cars, eight four-wheeled MG-armed SdKfz 221 armoured cars, four four-wheeled gun-armed SdKfz 222, three six-wheeled SdKfz 231, and three heavy eight-wheeled SdKfz 232 armoured cars. All in all, each Aufklarungs Abteilung was equipped with 60 armoured cars, 119 motorcycles, 34 staff cars and 68 lorries.

   Next comes a chapter on Tactics, covering six pages and divided into sections titled Movement and Attacking. The following chapter, Weapons and Equipment, delves into the panzers themselves. It includes tables with tank strength (according to tank type for each individual regiment) for 1 September 1939 and 10 May 1940. The author throws in a table of data on French tanks in 1940 plus a sidebar on British armor. Battistelli subsequently offers seven pages of text and diagrams related to Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence.
   The author also presents six examples of panzers in combat during 1939-1940:

• Panzer Divisions at the River Bzura, Poland
• Hannut: The First Tank vs Tank Battle
• The Breakthrough at Sedan
• Checked at Gembloux
• Rommel's Breakthrough at the Meuse
• The Counter-attack at Arras

   Each of these engagements includes 1-2 pages of text and a very nice full-page, full-color map of tactical operations, mostly at regiment/battalion level. Here's a brief extract from one of the operational accounts.

   In May 1940 XVI. Armeekorps (mot), under the command of General der Kavallerie Erich Hoepner, was the only armoured force of Heeresgruppe (army group) B to take part in the operations in Belgium. Moving north of the Sambre-River Meuse line (the latter crossed at Maastricht), the corps marched towards the so-called 'Gembloux Gap', actually a stretch of open terrain between the Meuse and Dyle rivers just to the north-east of Charleroi. The area between Wavre and Namur was part of the Dyle defence line and was strongly defended by the French First Army; to the east of it, the Belgians had built the 'barrage de Cointet', an anti-tank barrier.
   The French command had decided to send the Corps de Cavalerie under General Rene Prioux, with the 2nd and 3rd DLM (Division Legere Mecanique), some 30km to the east of these defences. As they deployed in the Hannut area on 11 May 1940, the stage was set for the first tank vs. tank battle of the war. The undulating terrain of the Belgian plain was well suited to armoured warfare, though some obstacles were present, such as the River Mehaigne running to the south of Hannut and the Petite Gette to the east, running south to north. The many towns and villages in the area also formed barriers for the Panzers, which General Langlois (commander of 3rd DLM) turned to his advantage by establishing a series of strongpoints over a 17km-wide front. To the north lay the bulk of 6th Light Mechanized Brigade with two battalions of Dragoons Portes (motorized infantry) supported by four squadrons of the 1st Cuirassier Regiment, while to the south (around Hannut, where outposts were established) were the 5th Light Mechanized Brigade with the four squadrons of the 1st Cuirassier Regiment plus the 1st Dragoons Portes Battalion and the bulk of the divisional artillery. All in all, the division had 87 Somua and 87 R 35 Hotchkiss tanks in the 5th Brigade plus a further 63 R 35 Hotchkiss tanks in the 6th Brigade. 3. Panzer Division had 343 tanks, of which 68 were PzKpfw III and IV, while 4. Panzer Division had 331 tanks, of which 64 were PzKpfw III and IV.

   The book concludes with Lessons Learned plus Abbreviations and Glossary. There's also a two-page Bibliography, making it clear Battistelli has done his homework, including some important German sources.
   How does Bishop's work compare? Text on the back cover of Order of Battle: German Panzers in World War II highlights four features of the book:

• Colorful tree diagrams of every panzer formation from the invasion of Poland to the fall of the Third Reich
• Tables give the armored strength of some of Germany's best-known panzer regiments
• Maps illustrating the main armored campaigns and actions of the war
• Authoritative guide to the organization of Germany's armored divisions

   Despite those claims, the book ends up being rather different. A more accurate description would be a lightweight, very basic outline of the military campaigns in Europe and North Africa interspersed with generalized organigrams showing the overall German OB for each of those campaigns. More specifically, Bishop divides the book into these chapters:

• The Panzerwaffe of the German Army
• Polish Campaign, 1939
• France and the Low Countries, 1940
• The Balkans and Crete, 1941-45
• Panzers in North Africa, 1941-43
• The Eastern Front, 1941-45
• Sicily and Italy, 1943-45
• Normandy, France, and the Low Countries, 1944
• Defence of the Reich, 1945

   Each of the chapters is organized in the same manner, running from roughly 12 pages for the shorter ones up to around 60 pages for the Russian front. Within each chapter, Bishop divides his material into separate sections for individual operations or time periods. For example, the chapter on the Balkans includes a section with five pages on the invasion of Yugoslavia, a section with two pages on the German invasion of Greece and Crete, a section with four pages on operations in the Balkans during 1942-1944, and a section with four pages on operations in the Balkans during 1944 and 1945.
   Each of these individual sections is organized according to a fairly standardized template. Bishop writes a page or two of text, provides one or two brief sidebars on a related topic, gives a full-page map of the action, and adds one or more organigrams showing German forces involved.
   Looking specifically at Bishop's section on "Retreat from the Balkans," here's what we find.
   The map, as with all the maps in the book, is cleanly executed and very attractive (and looks a great deal like maps typically found in Osprey books). Unfortunately—and this is true of almost every map in the volume—the level of detail is limited to army groups and armies. In this case, the map covers the territory from Prague and Cracow in the north to Split and Mostar in the south with a couple of wavy front lines (one for 15 December 1944 and one for 9 May 1945). The only units shown on the map, however, are icons for the HQs of three German army groups, two German armies, and five Soviet fronts without any indication of boundary lines for their frontages, what units were subordinate to the HQs, or the locations of corps and divisions. While visually attractive, the amount of military information imparted remains minimal, and the same can be said about almost all the maps accompanying Bishop's text.
   The same section contains two OB diagrams for forces of German Army Group F, with one for September 1943 and one for September 1944. Note that neither of these OBs matches the time frame of the accompanying map. Each OB is rather skeletal, showing the army group HQ, army (or equivalent) HQs, corps HQs, and—usually, but not always—the divisions assigned directly to each HQ. In some cases the commanding officer of the unit is also identified. While some corps HQs have no subordinate units shown, we can see, for example, that in September 1944 the V SS Mountain Corps of Second Panzer Army contained 7th SS Gebirgs Division, 118th Jaeger Division, 369th Infantry Division, and 18th SS Gebirgs Police Regiment. Despite the claim on the back cover of the book ("tree diagrams of every panzer formation"), the OBs don't really cover non-divisional panzer formations. Interestingly, Bishop eschews standard unit symbols for the various units. Instead of showing, for example, the usual crossed lines or oval to indicate infantry or armor, he simply shows the name of the unit. If the unit is armored, mechanized, or motorized, he marks it with a colored dot: red for panzer division, orange for motorized division, blue for panzer army or corps, and gray for a light division. On the OB for Army Group F for September 1944, for example, Second Panzer Army sports a blue dot, the Brandenburg Division shows an orange dot, and the 20th Panzer Division is marked with a red dot. Dots are awarded to no other HQ or unit.
   As to the text itself, here's an example of what Bishop writes:

   The Balkans were as great an attraction to Stalin as they had been for centuries to his imperial predecessors - the Romanovs. On 20 August, Malinovsky's 2nd Ukrainian Front broke through the defences of Army Group Ukraine in the Pruth valley opposite Jassy.
   By 24 August, they were near Leovo, where they met two of Tolbukhin's mechanized corps, which had forced the lower Dniester into Bessarabia. They had isolated the German Sixth Army, reconstituted after Stalingrad, when political events intervened.

Axis disintegrating

   A coup d'etat took place in Bucharest. Marshal Antonescu was overthrown. King Michael took his place, the government promptly sued for peace, and two Romanian armies laid down their arms. Southern Bessarabia, the Danube delta and the Carpathian passes to the north lay open to the Soviet armies.
   A group of pro-Allied officers now seized control in Sofia and welcomed the Red Army - so the invasion became 'a visit by friendly forces', who raced through the capital on 15 September. Collecting two Bulgarian armies, they pressed on to the Yugoslav border opposite Bor in the north and Skopje in the south.
   By 8 September, Malinovsky's armies had joined Tolbukhin's. On 28 September, they moved forward together to link up with Marshal Tito's Partisans, while 2nd Ukrainian Front drove in over the Romanian border north of the Danube.

Escape from the Balkans

   But the German Army Group F under Field Marshal von Weichs was holding open an escape route for both themselves and Army Group E under Field Marshal Lohr, rapidly retreating up through Greece. The Germans put up such a stout resistance that it was 20 October before Belgrade was in Allied hands - and then only after the hulk of both German army groups had raced north through the gap. They joined a hastily forming defence line in Hungary, where yet another attempt to desert the Axis had been foiled.

   All the sections of all the chapters in the book are more or less identical to this one. In addition, Bishop mixes in a few sidebars (covering topics such as bios of German generals, tank strengths for a few specified units on particular dates, and so on), a number of organigrams showing TOE data for sample panzer regiments and battalions, and assorted captions. Here's the caption for a half-page map of Operation Dynamo:

   British and French forces in Belgium faced annihilation as the infantry of von Bock's army group pressed southwards from the Low Countries, while the panzers of von Rundstedt's army group raced northwards along the Channel coast. Only a rapid retreat to the coast at Dunkirk and evacuation to England would save even a quarter of the BEF. But then, the Fuhrer ordered his panzers to stop, allowing the British a breathing space. Operation Dynamo saw some 338,000 allied servicemen being lifted safely from the beaches, and small private craft being used to ferry the troops out to larger vessels waiting in deep water. Much was owed to the French troops who were fighting furiously to the south, holding back powerful German forces.

   Bishop includes appendices on annual tank production (not broken down by models) for the US, Soviet Union, UK, Germany, and Italy; three outline TOE diagrams (1941 panzer division, 1944 panzer division, and 1943 panzer-grenadier division); two pages of tactical insignia for panzer divisions; and a list of abbreviations. He closes the book with a "Commander Index" and an ordinary index, but no bibliography.
   Given all that, how can we compare and contrast the two books?

• Battistelli limits himself to 1939 and 1940 while Bishop covers the entire war
• Battistelli's text, while not exactly inspired, provides quite a bit of useful, thoughtful material about German panzer units while Bishop limits his text almost exclusively to broad, unspecific notes about each campaign
• Bishop offers many outline OBs for German army groups, armies, and corps but relatively little TOE data while Battistelli emphasizes TOE material
• Bishop includes a few photos for his chapter titles while Battistelli incorporates many more photos to illustrate various topics
• In comparison to Battistelli's maps, Bishop's are vague and not very informative
• Battistelli provides a useful bibliography while Bishop is silent on his sources
• Battistelli stays very much on target, with nearly everything in his book closely related to the main topic
• Bishop's book, according to the title and the blurb on the back cover, should be focusing on German orders of battle, and there is quite a bit of OB material, but extraneous text and maps pad the pages with little of value

   In sum, neither of these books is likely to become the go-to volume for serious researchers looking for information about German armor and armored units. However, within the context and limitations of the genre (his is a slim Osprey volume) Battistelli has met or exceeded expectations with a solid dose of information presented in a clean, concise manner. On the other hand, Bishop's book proves less successful. Although visually attractive, it seems almost like he dived into Tessin, compiled a bunch of basic German OBs, and went to a publisher with his organigrams, only to be told he needed to crank out some accompanying text. The book is at best a primer, while its title and description don't really match the contents. Is it a generic history of the war with added OBs, or is it a collection of OBs with some insipid text?
   We can readily recommend Battistelli's Panzer Divisions: The Blitzkrieg Years 1939-40 as a good basic source on the organization and employment of German panzers during that period. For Bishop's Order of Battle: German Panzers in World War II, prospective buyers will want to examine a copy before making a purchase in order to ensure they understand the nature of what they're getting.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from the publishers.
   Thanks to the publishers for providing these review copies.